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Abstract Cultivated meat (CM) offers a sustainable and ethical alternative to conventional animal agriculture, involving cell maturation in a controlled environment. To emulate the structural complexity of traditional meat, the development of animal-free and edible scaffolds is crucial, providing vital physical and biological support during tissue development. The aligned vascular bundles of the decellularised asparagus scaffold were selected to facilitate the attachment and alignment of murine myoblasts (C2C12) and porcine adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (pADMSCs). Muscle differentiation was assessed through immunofluorescence staining with muscle markers, including Myosin heavy chain (MHC), Myogenin (MYOG), and Desmin. The metabolic activity of Creatine Kinase in C2C12 differentiated cells significantly increased compared to proliferated cells. Quantitative PCR analysis revealed a significant increase in Myosin Heavy Polypeptide 1 (MYH1) and MYOG expression compared to Day 0. These results highlight the application of decellularised plant scaffold (DPS) as a promising, edible material conducive to cell attachment, proliferation, and differentiation into muscle tissue. To create a CM prototype with biological mimicry, pADMSC-derived muscle and fat cells were also co-cultured on the same scaffold. The co-culture was confirmed through immunofluorescence staining of muscle markers and LipidTOX staining, revealing distinct muscle fibres and adipocytes containing lipid droplets respectively. Texture profile analysis conducted on uncooked CM prototypes and pork loin showed no significant differences in textural values. However, the pan-fried CM prototype differed significantly in hardness and chewiness compared to pork loin. Understanding the scaffolds’ textural profile enhances our insight into the potential sensory attributes of CM products. DPS shows potential for advancing CM biomanufacturing.

Driven by population growth, rising living costs, and the urgent need to address climate change, sustainable food production and circular economy principles are becoming increasingly important. Conventional agriculture faces significant challenges, including land scarcity, water shortages, and disrupted supply chains. As a solution, cities are adopting vertical farming to enhance urban food security and promote circularity. This research introduces FLOAT (Farming Lab on a Trough), an innovative vertical farming system made from bio-polymers and recycled polyethylene terephthalate glyco (rPETG) pellets from plastic bottles. FLOAT’s design emphasizes sustainability and closed-loop material usage. The study showcases the versatility of additive manufacturing (AM) in creating complex geometries with fully functional 1:1 prototypes. These prototypes highlight FLOAT’s potential as a scalable and adaptable solution for sustainable food production in urban settings, contributing to improved food security and environmental sustainability. By integrating FLOAT with conventional practices, we aim to exceed Singapore’s 2030 food security targets and achieve lasting urban food resilience. FLOAT aims to scale sustainable food production, fostering community ties with food, and nurturing future responsibility.

Developing guidelines for designing robot-inclusive spaces has been challenging and resource-intensive, primarily relying on physical experiments and observations of robot interactions within the built environment. These conventional methods are often costly, time-consuming, and labour-intensive, demanding manual intervention. To address these limitations, this study explores the potential of using digital twins as a promising solution to offer detailed insights, reducing the dependence on physical experiments for studying robot-built environment interactions.Although the concept of digital twins is popular in many domains, the use of digital twins for this specific problem has not been explored yet. A novel methodology for assessing existing built environment guidelines by incorporating them as an architectural digital twin asset within robot simulation software is proposed in this regard. By analysing the digital interactions between robots and the architectural digital twin assets in simulations, the compatibility of the environment with robots is evaluated, ultimately contributing to enhancing these guidelines to be robot-inclusive. The ultimate goal is to create environments that are not only inclusive but also readily accessible to Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). With this objective, the proposed methodology is tested on robots of different specifications to understand the robots’ interactions with different architectural digital twin environments and obstacles. The digital twin effectively demonstrates the capability of the proposed approach in assessing the robots’ suitability for deployment in the simulated environments. The gained insights contribute to improved comprehension and strengthen the existing design guidelines.

Fault diagnosis models based on machine learning are often subjected to degradation in performance when dealing with data that are differently distributed than the training data. Such an occasion is common in reality because machines usually operate under various conditions. Transfer learning is a solution for the performance degradation of cross-condition fault diagnosis problems. This paper studies how transfer learning algorithms transfer component analysis (TCA) and joint distribution alignment (JDA) improve the cross-condition fault diagnosis accuracy of an aircraft environmental control system (ECS). Both methods work by transforming the source and target domain data into a feature space where their distributions are aligned to allow a uniform classifier to act accurately in both domains. This paper discovered that both TCA and JDA produce significantly more accurate results than traditional methods on target domains with unlabelled ECS data taken at different operating conditions than the source domain. Additionally, when dealing with unlabelled data from unknown conditions bearing a different composition of classes in the target domain, TCA is found to be more robust and accurate, generating an average predictive accuracy of 95.22%, which demonstrates the ability of transfer learning in solving similar problems in the real-world application of fault diagnosis.

An aircraft is made up of a number of complicated systems which work in harmony to ensure safe and trouble-free flight. In order to maintain such a platform, many diagnostic and prognostic techniques have been suggested, mostly aimed at components but some at the system level. Together these form a patchwork approach to the overall problem of efficiently informing aircraft maintenance to the Original Equipment Manufacturers, the operators /airlines, and the Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul organisations. It involves these organisations having to support several different approaches to aircraft health management, and is therefore inefficient and costly. In the current work, a streamlined methodology is put forward. This is based on OSA-CBM (Open System Architecture for Condition Based Maintenance) and can be applied to any aircraft system. Integral with this is the use of mRMR (minimum redundancy maximum relevance) for feature selection, the resulting symptom vector being used for fault diagnosis. This approach is demonstrated on three test cases: the engine, the environmental control system, and the fuel system. In each case, the digital twin setup, simulation conditions for healthy and faulty scenarios, a methodology based on OSA-CBM up to diagnostics are detailed. Diagnostics is carried out for each system in turn, using four machine learning supervised algorithms. The best performing algorithm for each system will then subsequently be used in a vehicle level reasoner called FAVER (A Framework for Aerospace Vehicle Reasoning), which requires these system diagnoses as a starting point for vehicle reasoning and fault ambiguity resolution.

This paper discusses the development and implementation of the architecture of a Framework for Aerospace Vehicle Reasoning, ‘FAVER’. Integrated Vehicle Health Management systems require a holistic view of the aircraft to isolate faults cascading between aircraft systems. FAVER is a system-agnostic framework developed to isolate such propagating faults by incorporating Digital Twins (DTs) and reasoning techniques. The flexibility of FAVER to work with different types and scales of DTs and diagnostics, and its ability to adapt and expand for previously unknown faults and new systems are demonstrated in this paper. The paper also shows the novel combination of relationship matrix and fault attributes database used to structure the knowledge of FAVER’s expert system. The paper provides the working mechanism of FAVER’s reasoning and its ability to isolate faults at the system level, identify their root causes, and predict the cascading effects at the vehicle level. Four aircraft systems are used for demonstration purposes: i) the Electrical Power System, ii) the Fuel System, iii) the Engine, and iv) the Environmental Control System, and the use case scenarios are adapted from real aircraft incidents. The paper also discusses the pros and cons of FAVER’s reasoning via demonstrations and evaluates the performance of FAVER’s reasoning through a comparative study with a supervised neural network model.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common endocrine disease characterized by a state of hyperglycemia (higher level of glucose in the blood than usual). DM and its complications can lead to diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). DFU is associated with impaired wound healing, due to inappropriate cellular and cytokines response, infection, poor vascularization, and neuropathy. Effective therapeutic strategies for the management of impaired wound could be attained through a better insight of molecular mechanism and pathophysiology of diabetic wound healing. Nanotherapeutics-based agents engineered within 1–100 nm levels, which include nanoparticles and nanoscaffolds, are recent promising treatment strategies for accelerating diabetic wound healing. Nanoparticles are smaller in size and have high surface area to volume ratio that increases the likelihood of biological interaction and penetration at wound site. They are ideal for topical delivery of drugs in a sustained manner, eliciting cell-to-cell interactions, cell proliferation, vascularization, cell signaling, and elaboration of biomolecules necessary for effective wound healing. Furthermore, nanoparticles have the ability to deliver one or more therapeutic drug molecules, such as growth factors, nucleic acids, antibiotics, and antioxidants, which can be released in a sustained manner within the target tissue. This review focuses on recent approaches in the development of nanoparticle-based therapeutics for enhancing diabetic wound healing.

The Electrical Power System (EPS) in an aircraft is designed to interact extensively with other systems. With a growing trend towards more electric aircraft, the complexity of interactions between the EPS and other systems has grown. This has resulted in an increased necessity of implementing health monitoring methods like diagnosis and prognosis of the EPS at the systems level. This paper focuses on developing a diagnostic algorithm for the EPS to detect and isolate faults and their root causes that occur at the Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) connecting with aircraft systems like the engine and the fuel system. This paper aims to achieve this in two steps: (i) developing an EPS digital twin and presenting the simulation results for both healthy and fault scenarios, (ii) developing an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) monitor to detect faults in the EPS. The results from the ANFIS monitor are processed in two methods: (i) a crisp boundary approach, and (ii) a fuzzy boundary approach. The former approach has a poor misclassification rate; hence the latter method is chosen to combine with causal reasoning for isolating root causes of these interacting faults. The results from both these methods are presented through examples in this paper.

In the title compound, C11H10O3, the prop-2-yn-1-yl group is inclined to the benzene ring by 69 (7)°. In the crystal, molecules are linked by a pair of C—H...O hydrogen bonds, forming inversion dimers with an R22(12) ring motif. The dimers are linked by a second C—H...O hydrogen bond, forming sheets parallel to the (102) plane. The sheets stack along the c-axis direction with a separation of ca 3.4 Å.

Aloe vera (AV) and tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH) exhibit significant properties such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-bacterial activities to facilitate skin tissue engineering. The present study aims to develop poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL)/ AV containing curcumin (CUR), and TCH loaded hybrid nanofibrous scaffolds to validate the synergistic effect on the fibroblast proliferation and antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria for wound healing. PCL/AV, PCL/CUR, PCL/AV/CUR and PCL/AV/TCH hybrid nanofibrous mats were fabricated using an electrospinning technique and were characterized for surface morphology, the successful incorporation of active compounds, hydrophilicity and the mechanical property of nanofibers. SEM revealed that there was a decrease in the fiber diameter (ranging from 360 to 770 nm) upon the addition of AV, CUR and TCH in PCL nanofibers, which were randomly oriented with bead free morphology. FTIR spectra of various electrospun samples confirmed the successful incorporation of AV, CUR and TCH into the PCL nanofibers. The fabricated nanofibrous scaffolds possessed mechanical properties within the range of human skin. The biocompatibility of electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds were evaluated on primary human dermal fibroblasts (hDF) by MTS assay, CMFDA, Sirius red and F-actin stainings. The results showed that the fabricated PCL/AV/CUR and PCL/AV/TCH nanofibrous scaffolds were non-toxic and had the potential for wound healing applications. The disc diffusion assay confirmed that the electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds possessed antibacterial activity and provided an effective wound dressing for skin tissue engineering.

Multifunctional nanofibrous scaffolds for effective bone tissue engineering (BTE) application must incorporate factors to promote neovascularization and tissue regeneration. In this study, silica-coated gold nanoparticles Au(SiO2) were tested for their ability to promote differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) into osteoblasts. Biocompatible poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL), PCL/silk fibroin (SF) and PCL/SF/Au(SiO2) loaded nanofibrous scaffolds were first fabricated by an electrospinning method. Electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds were characterized for fiber architecture, porosity, pore size distribution, fiber wettability and the relevant mechanical properties using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), porosimetry, determination of water contact angle, measurements by a surface analyzer and tabletop tensile-tester measurements. FESEM images of the scaffolds revealed beadless, porous, uniform fibers with diameters in the range of 164 ± 18.65 nm to 215 ± 32.12 nm and porosity of around 88−92% and pore size distribution around 1.45−2.35 µm. Following hMSCs were cultured on the composite scaffolds. Cell-scaffold interaction, morphology and proliferation of were analyzed by FESEM analysis, MTS (3-(4,5-dimethyl thiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium inner salt) and CMFDA (5-choromethyl fluorescein acetate) dye assays. Osteogenic differentiation of MSCs into osteogenic cells were determined by alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, mineralization by alizarin red S (ARS) staining and osteocalcin expression by immunofluorescence staining. The results revealed that the addition of SF and Au(SiO2) to PCL scaffolds enhanced the mechanical strength, interconnecting porous structure and surface roughness of the scaffolds. This, in turn, led to successful osteogenic differentiation of hMSCs with improved cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, mineralization and expression of pro-osteogenic cellular proteins. This provides huge support for Au(SiO2) as a suitable material in BTE.

Electrospun fibers have emerged as promising materials in the field of biomedicine, due to their superior physical and cell supportive properties. In particular, electrospun mats are being developed for advanced wound dressing applications. Such applications require the firers to possess excellent antimicrobial properties in order to inhibit potential microbial colonization from resident and non-resident bacteria. In this study, we have developed Poly-ε-Caprolactone /gelatin hybrid composite mats loaded with natural herbal extract (Gymnema sylvestre) to prevent bacterial colonization. As-spun scaffolds exhibited good wettability and desirable mechanical properties retaining their fibrous structure after immersing them in phosphate buffered saline (pH 7.2) for up to 30 days. The initial burst release of Gymnema sylvestre prevented the colonization of bacteria as confirmed by the radial disc diffusion assay. Furthermore, the electrospun mats promoted cellular attachment, spreading and proliferation of human primary dermal fibroblasts and cultured keratinocytes, which are crucial parenchymal cell-types involved in the skin recovery process. Overall these results demonstrated the utility of Gymnema sylvestre impregnated electrospun PCL/Gelatin nanofibrous mats as an effective antimicrobial wound dressing.

Seema Aziyakath Shavro1, Punitha Ezhilarasu1, Jebamani Augustine1, Joel J Bechtel2, Devasahayam J Christopher31College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore, South India; 2Pulmonologist and Critical Care Physician, Grand Junction, CO, 3Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Christian Medical College, Vellore, South IndiaBackground: Improvement in quality of life (QOL) has become a focus for the management of incurable chronic diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study investigates factors influencing the QOL of patients with COPD in India.Methods: Seventy-three consecutive COPD patients visiting an outpatient pulmonary clinic underwent health-related QOL (HRQOL) assessment using the World Health Organization’s QOL abbreviated questionnaire and St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ). Symptom severity and grade of dyspnea were estimated by the Chronic Lung Disease Severity Index (CLD) and Medical Research Council assessments, and patient demographic data were collected. Spirometry and 6-minute walk tests were performed to assess lung function and functional status.Results: Patients with COPD showed significantly reduced HRQOL when measured by the World Health Organization’s QOL abbreviated questionnaire and the SGRQ. CLD estimate for severity of lung disease (P < 0.001), Medical Research Council assessment for dyspnea (P < 0.01), and duration of illness (P < 0.05) showed close correlation with HRQOL. Worsening forced expiratory volume in 1 second and 6-minute walk test results closely correlated with poorer HRQOL (P < 0.01). No association between QOL and age, quantum of smoking, education, comorbid illnesses, or occupational exposure was found.Conclusion: This study showed that Indian patients with COPD had reduced HRQOL. Longer disease duration, patient perception of disease severity, and worsening dyspnea impacted negatively on HRQOL.Keywords: quality of life, COPD, disease severity, India, questionnaire

Novel jasmine bud-shaped copper nanoparticles were synthesized by a green chemical reduction method using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a capping agent, L-ascorbic acid (AA) as a reducing agent as well as antioxidant agent, isonicotinic acid hydrazide (INH) as a reducing agent, and water as a solvent at 60–70°C (pH-7) in the presence of air. The UV-Vis absorption maximum obtained is 573 nm. The crystal lattice (fcc) structure of Cu Nps was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The novel jasmine bud shape was visualized in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). The height of single copper nanobud was 6.41 nm as measured by atomic force microscope (AFM). The average particle size 6.95 nm is obtained by XRD results. Antibacterial activity of the Cu nanobuds was evaluated by testing against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria.

Background: Intubating Laryngeal Mask Airway (ILMA) is a relatively new device designed to have better intubating characteristics than the standard Laryngeal Mask Airway. This study was designed to compare Intubating Laryngeal Mask with standard Direct Laryngoscopy (DLS), taking into account ease of intubation, time taken for intubation, success rate of intubation, hemodynamic responses and upper airway morbidity. Materials and Methods: Sixty patients, ASA I or II, of age between 20 and 60 years, were enrolled in this prospective and randomized study. They were randomly allocated to one of the two groups: group ILMA, Intubating Laryngeal Mask Airway; group DLS, Direct Laryngoscopy. The patients were intubated orally using either equipment after induction of general anesthesia. Results and Conclusions: DLS is comparatively a faster method to secure tracheal intubation than Intubating Laryngeal Mask. ILMA offers no advantage in attenuating the hemodynamic responses compared to direct laryngoscope. The success rate of intubation through Intubating Laryngeal Mask is comparable with that of DLS. The upper airway morbidity and mean oxygen saturation are comparable in both the groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Post-partum depression, although heterogeneous, is often considered a medical disease when viewed from the biomedical perspective. However, recent reports from the Indian subcontinent have documented psychosocial causal factors. Method: This study employed qualitative methodology in a representative sample of women in rural South India. Women in the post-partum period were assessed using the Tamil versions of the Short Explanatory Model Interview, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and a semi-structured interview to diagnose ICD 10 depression. Socio-demographic and clinical details were also recorded. Results: Some 137 women were recruited and assessed, of these, 26.3% were diagnosed to have post-partum depression. The following factors were associated with post-partum depression after adjusting for age and education: age less than 20 or over 30 years, schooling less than five years, thoughts of aborting current pregnancy, unhappy marriage, physical abuse during current pregnancy and after childbirth, husband's use of alcohol, girl child delivered in the absence of living boys and a preference for a boy, low birth weight, and a family history of depression. Post-partum depression was also associated with an increased number of causal models of illness, a number of non-medical models, treatment models and nonmedical treatment models. Conclusion: Many social and cultural factors have a major impact on post-partum depression. Post-partum depression, when viewed from a biomedical framework, fails to acknowledge the role of context in the production of emotional distress in the post-partum period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Epidemiological evidence suggests an indirect link between hypertension and tuberculosis, and several studies have reported that rifampicin has potentially diminished the hypotensive effects of many anti-hypertensive agents by inducing cytochrome P450. This study investigates rifampicin's effect on the target blood pressure in known hypertensive patients whose blood pressure had been previously controlled with anti-hypertensive drugs. Methodology This prospective observational study was conducted at the Institute of Internal Medicine, Madras Medical College and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai, from June 2021 to December 2022. A total of 160 patients with known hypertension on anti-hypertensive drugs were recruited for this study. All these patients had been recently diagnosed with tuberculosis and had been treated with rifampicin-based anti-tuberculosis therapy (ATT). Results The maximum number of patients were under 50 years of age and predominantly male (67%). A total of 91 (57%) patients were hypertensive for less than five years, and the remaining patients were hypertensive within 6-10 years or more than 10 years. However, these patients had other comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus (32%) and coronary artery disease (27%). Before ATT, the mean systolic blood pressure (SBP)/diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was recorded to be 130/80 mmHg. The last six months' course of ATT showed mean values around 154/96 mmHg even after adding additional/multiple anti-hypertensive drugs. After discontinuation of ATT, the mean SBP/DBP was effectively 130/80 mmHg at four weeks. Conclusions Rifampicin significantly diminishes the hypotensive effects of many well-established anti-hypertensives such as calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers, and diuretics to maintain blood pressure., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2023, S et al.)